If Japan Can, Why Cant We? – 1980 NBC Special Report

It is very hard for us today to remember (or learn if we are too young) what the situation was like in 1980 (see the bottom of the post for some data on the economy at that time). Specifically two areas were very different back then: the USA economy and the media landscape.

On June 24th 1980, NBC broadcast a special program in prime time: “If Japan Can, Why Cant We?”. It is hard to image today that such a production could have even a ripple in the business community. But that was a very different time. And that program created much more than a ripple. Prime time TV was a much different place than it is today; back then such a broadcast had an amazingly large reach as network TV had little competition (even from cable TV, to say nothing of Netflix, the internet, computer gaming, etc.)

Today, NBC has allowed The W. Edwards Deming Institute to make this historic program available to stream over the internet. And this capability (to provide it on demand online) shows yet another way in which our current landscape is unimaginable different from 1980. Still the message in this broadcast on using management practices focused on delighting customers, respecting and involving employees while using data and statistical tools to continually improve is still very powerful today.

Insightful quote from “If Japan Can, Why Cant We?” by Herbert Striner, dean of the Kogod Business School at American University (7 minutes into the program).

When we’re discussing the new environmental control regulations concerning engines, the American manufacturers tend to be thinking immediately about how to put it off, how to stop it, which congressman to contact. While the people from Toyota, Honda, VW, are busy trying to figure out how soon to get back so they have their research people, their production people working on the problem of meeting these specifications.

Throughout “If Japan Can, Why Cant We?” executives and front line workers talk about how important it is to involve workers in improvement efforts. And repeatedly Lloyd Dobbins (the presenter) mentions how the companies making this work in Japan, and the USA, don’t reduce the workforce based on improvements. So even as the companies make dramatic improvements in productivity workers’ jobs are safe (they are moved to other positions with the company or allow the company to grow output with the same labor force).

The importance of treating employees as people and deeply involving them in improvement efforts was stressed throughout. This is, of course, at the core of Deming’s management philosophy.

Dr. Deming makes a brief appearances at the beginning and at minute 31. I think the whole show is worth watching, but if you want to skip directly to where the program focuses most specifically on Deming’s contributions you can jump to minute 60. The program takes a detailed look at applying Deming’s ideas at Nashua corporation. And the program includes Deming speaking his thoughts, such as:

I think people here [USA] expect miracles. American management thinks that they can just copy from Japan — but they don’t know what to copy.

A few quick data points on the economy in 1980 illustrate how different times were when “If Japan Can, Why Can’t We” was broadcast. The Federal Reserve’s Federal Funds rate reached a peak of 17.6% in April 1980. It has now been close to 0% for 10 years. Unemployment among auto workers rose from a low of 4.8% in 1979 to a record high of 24.7% during 1980 and then fell to 17.4% by the end of the year. Overall unemployment rose to a recession peak of 7.8% in 1980. Manufacturing lost 1.1 million jobs during the recession, the rest of the economy lost a total of 200,000 jobs.

There was a sense of pessimism about the economy. And over the next two years that sense proved justified as the unemployment rose to double digits for the first time since 1941. At the end of 1982 the unemployment rate stood at a postwar high of 10.8%.

When this was broadcast 35 years ago there was an immediate demand by business to learn and apply Deming’s ideas. It is hard to understand how great an impact it had, from our current position. I will explore more about this broadcast and its impact in future posts. It would be great to hear from those of you who remember how it impacted your career in the comments below.

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The quote about VW working to meet upcoming emissions regulations may be a little bit of an unintended lesson of the 14 Points given today’s knowledge. Apparently faced with a goal that could not be met, it is alleged that VW engineers put “cheats” into the engine control software. “By what means?” and “Eliminate management by objective”.

[…] We recently announced the availability of the 1980 NBC News special report, “If Japan Can, Why… that introduced Dr. Deming to the USA business community. Many people have enjoyed viewing that program. Here we collect some of the reactions that have been posted online. […]

I was at FPL at the time and we were about to embrace a Journey for the Deming prize that would take 9 years to complete. It not only changed the framework of how ‘Quality” was managed, but also what kind of culture was needed to embrace the 14 Points and overcome the 7 Deadly Diseases. The result was two books: Mary Walton’s Deming Management at Work; and Frank Voehl’s (mine) Deming: The Way We Knew Him.

We started doing work with Publix in 1992 after beginning the Priority Management theory at our small business in FL. Publix had as a requirement the purchase of William Conway’s book, the Quality Secret. This is when we started learning of Deming and his teachings. We still employ the doctrine today. It is part of our Culture, and the main reason we are successful today in 2019 in a very tough market. Good Stuff here!